grammars of Latin and Greek would be gradual and eafy; but our precipitate way of hurrying them over fuch a gulph, before we have built them a bridge to it, is a fhock to their weak understandings, of which they feldom, or very late, recover. In the mean time, we wrong nature, and flender infants, who want neither capacity nor will to learn, till we put them upon fervice beyond their strength, and then indeed we baulk them. "The liberal arts and sciences are all beautiful as the graces; nor has grammar (the fevere mother of all) fo frightful a face of her own; it is the vizard put upon it that scares children. She is made to speak hard words, that to them found like conjuring.. Let her talk intelligibly, and they will liften to her. "In this, I think, as on other accounts, we shew ourselves true Britons, always overlooking our natural advantages. It has been the practice of the wisest nations to learn their own language by stated rules, to avoid the confufion that would follow from leaving it to vulgar use. Our English tongue (fays a learned man) is the most determinate in its construction, and reducible to the fewest rules; whatever language has less grammar in it, is not intelligible; and whatever has more, all that it has more is fuperfluous; for which reasons he would have it made the foundation of learning Latin, and all other languages. "To speak and write without absurdity the language of one's country, is commendable in persons of all stations, and to fome indispensably neceffary; and to this purpose I would recommend above all things the having a grammar of our mother tongue first taught in our schools, which would facilitate our youthsin learning their Latin and Greek grammar, with ipare time for arithmetic, astronomy, cofmography, history, &c. that would make them pass the spring of their life with profit and pleasure, that is now miferably spent in grammatical perplexities. "But here, methinks, I see the reader smile, and ready to afk me (as the lawyer did sexton Diego on his bequeathing rich legacies to the poor of the parish) where are these mighty sums to be raised ? Where is there such a grammar to be had? I will not answer as he did, Even where your worship pleases. No, it is our good fortune to have such a grammar with notes now in the press, and to be published next term. "I hear it is a chargeable work, and wish the publisher to have customers of all that have need of fuch a book; yet fancy that he cannot be such a sufferer, if it is only bought by all that have more need of it than they think they have. "A certain author brought a poem to Mr. Cowley, for his perusal and judgment of the performance, which he demanded at the next visit with a poetaster's afsurance; and Mr. Cowley, with his usual modesty, defired that he would be pleased to look a little to the grammar of it. To the graminar of it! what do you mean, Sir, would you send me to school again? Why Mr., would it do you any harm ? "This put me on confidering how this voyage of literature may be made with more safety and profit, expedition and delight; and at last, for completing so good a service, to request your directions in so deplorable a cafe; hoping that, as you have had compaffion on our over-grown coxcombs in concerns of less consequence, you will exert your charity towards innocents, and vouch-fafe to be guardian to the children and youth of Great Britain in this important affair of Education, wherein mistakes and wrong measures have so often occafioned their aversion to books, that had otherwife proved the chief ornament and pleasure of their life. Yours, &c. I am with fincerest respect, Sir, ENVY. OBSERVING BSERVING one person behold another, whe was an utter stranger to him, with a cast of his eye, which, methought expressed an emotion of heart very different from what could be raised by an object fo VOL. II. agreeable as the gentleman he looked at, I began to confider, not without some secret forrow, the condition of an envious man. Some have fancied that envy has a certain magical force in it, and that the eyes of the envious have by their fascination blasted the enjoyments of the happy. Sir Francis Bacon says, fome have been so curious as to remark the times and feasons when the stroke of an envious eye is most effectually pernicious, and have observed that it has been when the person envied has been in any circumstance of glory and triumph. At such a time the mind of the profperous man goes, as it were, abroad, among things without him, and is more exposed to the malignity. But I shall not dwell upon speculations so abstracted as these, or repeat the many excellent things which one might collect out of authors upon this miferable affection; but keeping in the road of common life, confider the envious man with relation to these three heads, his pains, his reliefs, and his happiness. The envious man is in pain upon all occafions which ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which administer the highest fatisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion, give the quickest pangs to perfons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow creatures are odious: Youth, beauty, valour, and wifdom, are provocations of their difpleasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this! To be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him! The condition of the envious man is the most emphatically miferable; he is not only incapable of rejoicing in another's merit or fuccess, but lives in a world wherein all mankind are in a plot against his quiet, by studying their own happiness and advantage. Profper is an honest tale-bearer, he makes it his bufiness to join in conversation with envious men. points to fuch an handsome young fellow, and whifpers that he is secretly married to a great fortune : When they doubt, he adds circumstances to prove it; and never fails to aggravate their distress, by afsuring them that, to his knowledge, he has an uncle who will leave him some thousands. Will has many arts of Will He this kind to torture this fort of temper, and delights in it. When he finds them change colour, and say faintly they wish such a piece of news is true, he has the malice to speak fome good or other of every man of their acquaintance. The reliefs of the envious man are those little blemishes and imperfections that discover themselves in an illustrious character. It is matter of great confolation to an envious person, when a man of known honour does a thing unworthy of himself: Or when any action which was well executed, upon better information appears so altered in its circumstances, that the fame of it is divided among many, instead of being attributed to one. This is a fecret satisfaction to these malignants; for the person whom they before could not but admire, they fancy is nearer their own condition as foon as his merit is shared among others. I remember fome years ago there came out an excellent ( poem without the name of the author. The little wits, who were incapable of writing it, began to pull in pieces the supposed writer. When that would not do, they took great pains to fuppress the opinion that it was his. That again failed. The next refuge was to fay it was overlooked by one man, and many pages wholly written by another. An honest fellow, who fat among a cluster of them in debate on this fubject, cried out, Gentlemen, if you are fure none of you yourselves had a hand in it, you are but where you were, whoever writ it. But the most usual fuccour to the envious, in cafes of nameless merit in this kind, is to keep the property, if poffible, unfixed, and by that means to hinder the reputation of it from falling upon any par ticular perfon. You fee an envious man clear up his countenance, if in the relation of any man's great happiness in one point, you mention his uneasiness in another. When he hears fuch a one is very rich, he turns pale, but recovers when you add that he has many children. In a word, the only sure way to an envious man's favour is not to deferve it. But if we confider the envious man in delight, it is like reading the feat of a giant in romance; the magnificence of his house confists in the many limbs of men whom he has flain. If any who promised themselves success in any uncommon undertaking mitcarry in the attempt, or he who aimed at what would have been useful and laudable meets with contempt and derifion, the envious man, under the colour of hating vain-glory, can smile with an inward wantonness of heart at the ill effect it may have upon an honest ambition for the future. SPECTATOR, Vol. I. No. 19. un It is the business of reason and philofophy to so oth and allay the passions of the mind, or turn them to a vigorous profecution of what is dictated by the derstanding. In order to this good end, I would keep a watchful eye upon the growing inclinations of youth, and be peculiarly careful to prevent their indulging themselves in such sentiments as may embitter their more advanced age. I have now under cure a young gentleman, who lately communicate d to me, that he was of all men living the most miferably envious. I defired the circumstances of his distemper; upon which with a figh that would have moved the most inhuman breast, Mr. Bickerstaff, faid he, I am nephew to a gentleman of a very great estate, to whose favour I have a cousin that has equal pretenfions with myself. This kinfman of mine is a young man of the highest merit imaginable, and has a mind so tender and fo generous, that I can observe he returns my envy with pity. He makes me, upon all occafions, the most obliging condescensions: And I cannot but take notice of the concern he is in to fee my life blafted with this racking paffion, though it is against himself. In the presence of my uncle, when I am in the room, he never speaks so weil as he is capable of, but always lowers his talents and accomplishments out of regard to me. What I beg of you, dear Sir, is to instruct me how to love him as I know he does me : And I beseech you, if poffible, to set my heart right, that it may no longer be tormented where it should be pleased, or hate a man whom I cannot but approve. |